Tiriel
by Tinuiell
Summary: Tiffany has always been different, from her stutter throughout elementary, to her all-black phase during middle school. Now she's graduated and working her dream job, but her strangeness is coming back full force in the form of weird dreams, shattered phones, and shrinking houses. Except, maybe this time the strangeness isn't from her. This all started at the oak tree, after all.
1. Ch1: I Become a Tree Thief

**CHAPTER ONE**

 _Thursday, January 7, 2016_

 _Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always. -Dante Alighieri_

* * *

Since the very beginning of the human race, people have known that there's something special about nature. That the animals, the trees, they all hold a sort of magic. It is beyond our understanding, so wonderful that we cannot even begin to comprehend it.

It was this intrinsic magic that saved my life. That brought me back from the world of dreams to once again walk with the living. I didn't recognize it at first, and I was terrified. That's the thing about humans - we fear what we do not know.

It all began on a frigid day in January, though not even the cold could keep me indoors.

My apartment building was situated right at the edge of the city, barely a five minute walk to the forest. I had an old oak tree there, where I always went to sit and relax after a busy day at work.

The rough bark dug into my back through my sweater as I leaned back again it's trunk, my blonde hair catching on the sharp edges. The tension drained out of my shoulders, leaving me sagging against the tree. Lainey, my co-worker, had been stressing about her finals all day, making the entire bookstore on edge.

I thumped my head back against the wood, rattling the leaves above. _'No more thinking about work,'_ I told myself. _'This is your time.'_

A breeze blew through the trees, not a crisp winter breeze, but a warm, strong one, laced with the smell of strawberries and honeysuckle. It shook the branches of the trees around me, leaves falling down into my lap.

The sound of bells, echoing like in a cave, caught my attention. A second passed, then a minute. A tall figure stepped out into the glade. He stood there, silent, his long, golden hair twisting in the flavored wind. He wore shining silver armor, a cloak of deep maroon clasped under his chin with a copper pendant. In his left hand he held the reins of a pure white horse that glowed faintly in the dying light, it's headstall flashing brightly as it tossed it's regal head. His right hand rested on the pommel of a great sword, studded with gems that shone like fire.

He stood for a second, silent. No sound penetrated the clearing. He gazed at me with kind eyes, bright and gold and sparkling with mirth. I felt strange under his gaze, as if I'd been found doing something I shouldn't've. Like he was a gentle god and I was caught stealing from his temple, though the temple was an oak tree and all I was stealing was a moment of peace.

The man stepped forward, feet silent against the forest floor. He left not a mark on the wet ground -muddied from a hard rain the night before- as he walked towards me. Reaching out a hand, he spoke for the first time in a clear, ringing voice unlike any I'd ever heard before.

 _"Arise, Tiffany, meluihun-nin. My beautiful one, come with me."_

* * *

 **HI! Tinuiell here with the new version of Tiriel!**

 **One of the most prominent changes I've made is that Enna's name is now Tiffany. I though it fit a lot more with the story, especially with the logic of Lainey and Lalaith. Enna and Tiriel just didn't make sense. I'm really sorry if this confuses any of you!**

 **Another change I've made is that Tiffany is not a high schooler any more. Nope, she's all adulty now, with an apartment and a job and a stressed-out co-worker.**

 **The third change, this is no longer a Glorfindel/OC story. I really wanted to venture into creating and writing a male character, something that I haven't really done before. Y'all will all be introduced to Thalnir later in the story. Oh and by the way, Thalnir doesn't have a forreal meaning like all the other names I do. I was just too lazy so I put a bunch of sounds together in a sorta elvish sounding way.**

 **I'M NOT UPDATING WITH THE NEW CHAPTERS ALL AT ONCE. CHAPTERS THAT DO NOT HAVE A DATE AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE ARE FROM THE OLD VERSION!**

 **Thank you and Good night.**

 **Xoxo, Tinuiell**

* * *

Translations:

meluihun-nin: my sweet heart/my lovely heart


	2. Ch2: I Meet Grass-Lady

**CHAPTER TWO**

 _Thursday, January 7, 2016_

 _All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. -Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

The world came into sharp, painful focus as I snapped back to consciousness, my breathes coming out in sharp pants. The cold air scratched at the walls of my lungs and my hands were chalky and stiff from several hours in the cold. I shivered as I stood, the mud squelching as it reluctantly relinquished it's hold.

My thoughts strayed to the dream. I knew, at least according to psychology, that you couldn't dream of a face you had never seen before. And yet I felt like I would have remembered a face like that. That strong jaw, those high cheekbones, it wasn't a face for forgetting.

I shuddered and put the dream, and the man, out of my mind. There was no time for dwelling on dreams, especially with a hot supper and a warm bed waiting for me back home.

That night I dreamed.

 _ **ooooo**_

 _I stood on the summit of a mountain, looking down at the valley below. A wide, winding river curved it's way in from the south-west, cutting through a dirt road leading to a beautiful white city. It's gates were guarded by tall statues of beautiful warriors, it's buildings seemingly carved from marble, or maybe from the mountains themselves._

 _'This is your destination,' I heard a voice whisper. 'When you wake, when you fully and finally wake, you must follow the path to Imladris.'_

 _A tall lady stood at my side, gazing over the valley. Her skin was tinted green, her dress made of moss and leaves. Beautiful and ancient, full of the same magic of the earth._

 _She turned to look at me fully. 'I will be there when you wake. You will not recognize me, but I will be there. I will show you the way...'_

 _Her voice trailed off into nothingness as the scene before me turned gray and disappeared._

 _ **ooooo**_

I heaved out a sigh as I sat down beside my oak tree, leaning on an old root exposed by the passage of time. I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hands and yawned. I had slept restlessly the night before, waking at 3 AM to find my power had gone out, frustration driving the strange dreams from my mind. I had been forced to dress in the dark, stumbling around my messy room and running into walls. By the time I remembered my dreams, I could barely grasp a wisp of a memory -a fleeting image of a beautiful, bright valley surrounded on three sides by tall mountains, a city of blinding white.

I leant back against the tree and closed my eyes, my head aching from the strain of tugging at the memory.

An airy laugh broke the silence, tinkling like tiny bells in the wind. My eyes snapped open. I watched in fascination as the trees grew, their trunks soaring up to the sky and throwing the ground below into shadow. The leaves of the trees turned golden, casting a warm tinge on the light that streamed through their branches. The rough bark smoothed, its dark brown fading to silver.

A beautiful woman glided out of the shadows, her raven hair framing her gentle face. A kind smile brightened the woman's cheeks, white teeth flashing out from behind pink lips. She towered over my short stature, pale skin set a-glow in the sunlight.

"Oh, penneth, is this where you've been hiding?"

Startled, I stood, scrambling awkwardly away from the woman and clutching tightly to the low hanging branches of my oak tree, the only one that remained unchanged in the midst of the shifting forest. It felt like the oak tree was my anchor, keeping me from joining this woman in the depths of the unknown wood.

The woman started forward, her feet silent against the forest floor.

"Who in the world ar-" I was interrupted by a shaky voice behind me.

"I-I'm so s-sorry for ru-nning, L-Lady Du-Dulinn. Th-e t-t-all ellon sc-scared me."

I whipped around, my eyes landing on a small form that sat, curled up, in exactly the same spot I'd been sitting just a moment earlier.

"Child, do not fear the warriors, they come to escort me back to Imladris. They do not want to hurt you. They protect us, and keep us safe."

The woman had a strange accent, one I barely recognized from the vision I had the day before. I seemed to remember it somehow, like a far off memory. A familiar voice that time had erased from my mind.

"Y-You're leaving?" the little girl asked worriedly, her voice stuttering a little bit less than before.

"Yes I am, and I'm sorry for springing this on you so suddenly. Would it make you feel better if I told you that you were to come with me?"

The little girl gasped, delighted, and threw her tiny arms around the woman as my vision faded to black.

* * *

 **So the quote for this chapter is actually kinda the theme for this story. "A dream within a dream."**

 **This rewrite is actually a little bit shorter than it was before because of two things:**

 **1) the scene I took out was from Tiffany at school. In this version she's already graduated.**

 **2) the scene really made Tiffany into a major Mary-Sue. It was one of those instances where the author says that the character is one thing (read: has problems with stuttering when talking with new people) and then goes and does another (totally sasses this guy she just met with 100% confidence and 0% stuttering). I'm ashamed of what this was before.**

 **That's all for now!**

 **Xoxo, Tinuiell**

* * *

 _Translations:_

 _penneth: little one_

 _Dulinn: nightingale_

 _ellon: male elf_


	3. Ch3: My House Redecorates Itself

**CHAPTER THREE**

 _Thursday, January 7, 2016_

 _Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe_

* * *

I stumbled around in the blackness, feeling my way around the wall to the outlet. It was so dark that I could barely see, even though I was farely sure that the sun had risen hours ago.

I slid my hands down the wall, but my hands hit smooth plaster instead of the cool plastic of the outlet. In a panic, I felt around the wall even more. I'd left my charger plugged in when the power had gone out, and now, with my battery on 6%, I needed my charger so I could charge my phone on the way to the bookshop.

Reluctanly, I turned on my phone's flashlight, aware that it would drain the battery even more. The flashlight on my phone reminded me of an delimma even bigger than my phone's emminant death: my flashlights had all gone missing, even though I kept one in each room for specifically this situation. Even more worrying was the fact that both my computer and house phone had gone missing, too. I had the thought to try and call the police, but with the power out and the only police station almost an hour away, I'd given up.

I scanned the flashlight over the wall, finding neither an outlet nor a charger. They had both dissappeared. I felt my breath catch in my throat, a hard lump that constricted my airway. I tore out of the room, running down the stairs, out the back door and tripping on the stone steps before rolling back to my feet and tearing down the path to the oak tree, leaving my phone in the dusty grass.

I had been avoiding my oak tree until now, for obvious reasons. My mind, I felt, had probably never been as stable as a mind ought to be, and now with the recent 'dreams', I feared that I was in the early stages of a complete mental break-down. I new I was overreacting, but never the less, I collapsed at the oak tree with relief, glad to be, for a moment, away from the insanity.

I scrambled to my feet, my spinning head long forgotten as I focused on a noise coming from the pathway I had just ran down.

I groaned, exhausted, as the first horse appeared.

"Not again," I complained petulantly, slumping back to the ground in defeat.

The same tall man from my first dream, the one with the striking face, rode the leading horse, the white stallion. Behind him rode the woman, the little child holding tightly to her waist from behind. The three were followed by a rather long procession of very tall, very medieval looking men, who all had hair at least as long as hers, but stick straight and in varying shades of blonde. If it wasn't for all of their varying facial features, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart from eachother.

I watched in silence as the first man halted in the middle of the clearing, holding his hand up in a fist to signal the rest to stop.

"We will rest here tonight, and continue in the morning. Try and stretch your legs out before going to sleep, it will hurt more in the morning if you don't," the man said, swinging down from his horse elegantly, then helping the woman and child down. It looked as if he had added the last part for the benefit of the two only, as the rest of the men, though truthfully it was difficult to distinguish them from women, looked as if they knew what they were doing.

They dismounted, dropping their reins to the ground like I had seen the cowboys in some of my father's old Westerns do with a particularly well trained horse, and lifted silvery-green bedrolls from their spots tied around the horses' backs. They arranged the bedding in a circle on the ground. The man closest to the woman set up a small tent a ways off from the circle of bedrolls. The woman, Lady Dulinn, nodded at him, silently thanking the man.

The first man approached the woman, who greeted him with a smile. "What can I do for you, Captain Thalnir?"

The man inclined his head slightly in hello, replying quietly with his smooth voice. "We are about a few days journey from Rivendell. I suggest you begin preparing for arrival."

Unable to stand watching any more, I stood again and walked back away, down the path. I had decided, in those short few moments while I watched the procession, that if I was going to lose my sanity, I was going to lose it with dignity, not snivelling on the ground like a five year old. No more tripping down paths at such ungodly hours of the morning.

Too soon, my peaceful, if somewhat unnerving, walk was over and I had arrive back at my apartment building.

I stopped short, my mind going blank. I was unable to fathom what she was currently seeing. The building, the nice, cheery, yellow painted three story apartment building was now made of coarse wood. I stood in silence, stunned to the point of muteness, as a warm wind swept through the clearing, the yellow paint slowly peeling away in the breeze until I stood in front of what could only be described as an oversized log cabin, not unlike the one I had stayed at with my friends over the holidays every year since sixth grade. I took a few steps forward, stopping at the steps. I bent down, picking up my shattered phone, it's glass front cracked from the contact with the stone stairs, and pressed the first number. It rang two times before the person on the other side picked up.

"Sup, babe? Hello?" the comforting voice of my best friend floated through the speaker, soothing my wired nerves.

"I need help," I said, feeling slightly empty and very confused as the late sun rose over the horizon.

* * *

 **Bonjour! Tinuiell again!**

 **Okay, so I said that I wasn't going to post all the new chapters at once, but apparently that's what I'm doing. I only have one more chapter left before I'm all caught up!**

 **I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **Xoxo, Tinuiell**


	4. Ch4: I Get Attacked By an Overgrown Weed

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 _Thursday, January 7, 2016_

 _A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality._

 _-John Lennon_

* * *

I was still standing there, frozen, a million thoughts running through my mind, by the time Lainey pulled up in her Infinity Q45.

"Tiffany?" Lainey called worriedly, slamming her car door and running to my side. "What happened to your house?"

"You can see it, too?" I whispered, out of breath. "Good. That's- that's good."

"Why is that _good_?" Lainey snapped. "Your apartment is suddenly made of wood, and that's _good_? Are you _insane_?"

"It's good because it means there's a larger chance that I am not going insane, and a smaller chance that I already am," I said, taking in a steadying lungful of air. I shoved my shattered phone into my back pocket and linked my arm through Lainey's. "Either way, I am _not_ going to go in there alone."

"I'd vote for not going in there at all," she joked worriedly. "Except my laptops still in your bedroom. Let's go, I want to get this creepiness over with."

I took a deep breath and skipped timidly up the steps, pulling a reluctant Lainey along with me into the house-turned-log-cabin.

"This morning I couldn't find the plug. It was like it had dissappeared," I explained as we scoped out the dark kitchen. "I went down to my oak tree because I needed a breath of air. It really freaked me out. I think I over-reacted though." I gave Lainey a sheepish smile before continuing. "When I got back it was like this. Luckily, I still had about 4% on my phone, so I called you. I think you know it from there."

I gazed around the kitchen. It was now empty of appliances; no dishwasher, fridge, oven, or microwave remained the once well-furnished room. Nothing with any hint of modern-day technology remained.

"Okay," I took in a shakey breath that seemed to rattle in my lungs like the noise-makers they used during pep rallies. "Let's go see the rest."

This time, Lainey led the way, seeing as I felt like I would collapse if I took another unsupported step.

Lainey tugged me down the short hall and into my bedroom. Most of my books were gone (which left me crying on the inside), and the few older tomes I owned were strewned hapazardly across the bookshelves; my leather-bound edition of Twelfth Night lay open on the hardwood floor.

The walls seemed to be made of a solid sheet of wood, how I imagined the inside of a tree would look. My window had dissappeared, the drapes fallen in a heap beside my lamp deprived nightstand.

I walked over to finger the heavy green cloth, my mind going blank. I was running solely on autopilot now, my mind unable to cope with the recent transformation of the building, along with the confusing visions.

I heard a voice behind me, growing more and more panicked by the moment. I ignored it in favor of holding the fallen curtains. Suddenly a hand clamped down on my shoulder, startling me back into reality. The panicked voice returned full force.

"Tiffany! Tiffany, we have to go! Like, NOW!"

It was Lainey tugging me out of the steadily shrinking room. Lost in my own thoughts, I hadn't noticed until now. The walls were growing closer and closer together -fast.

I let Lainey pull me out of the house, collapsing on to the grassy lawn. We watched in silence as the building shrank, the outside walls hardening into stiff bark and the roof tiles lengthening and sprouting leaves. In seconds, a tall, magnificent oak tree stood in front of them, it's old roots pushing out of the dirt. _My_ magnificent oak tree.

"Oh. My. God." Lainey gasped, feeling as if we had just fallen down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."

I tuned Lainey's panicked mutterings out, opting instead to shakily stand and walk over to my tree, placing a hand against the rough bark.

Something hard wrapped around my ankle, making me jump and look down. One of the thinner roots had torn itself up from the ground, securing itself around my boot. The root suddenly yanked sideways, pulling my foot out from under me and causing me to fall.

I landed amongst the roots with a loud thump, a sharp, familiar pain erupting in the back of my head as I slammed into the ground.

I could hear Lainey screaming my name as I dropped away into the looming darkness.

* * *

 **Yay! I've finally caught up with the new stuff! I'm super excited!**

 **I'll be back with the next chapter soon!**

 **Xoxo, Tinuiell**


	5. Ch5: I Become One With the Undergrowth

CHAPTER FIVE

 **[notice: I've gone back and rewritten the first four chapters. If you read them before this chapter was posted, please go back and read them again.]**

 **[warning: chapter contains scenes that mention battle-grounds and skeletons and t** **he like.]**

 _If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing to do is wake up. -J.M. Powers_

* * *

When I awoke it was dark. Shadows writhed around me like tangible hands, suffocating me underneath them.

I lay still for a moment, regaining my breath. I tried to stand, by was inhibited by a thick root that had grown across my stomach. Looking around, I noticed that it was not the only thing that had grown over my. Roots tangled among my legs, little white flowers grew inbetween my fingers. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that I was part of the undergrowth, but I heard the pounding of my heart and the growl of my stomach. That was the second thing I noticed: I was overbearingly hungry. My stomach clinched when I breathed in another lungful of air and choked on the thin, cold oxygen. My lungs felt rusted, unused.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice raspy, like I had lain under those roots for a century, which did not feel at all impossible in that moment. I tried again. "Is anyone out there?"

"Please help me!" I begged the empty air. It was all coming back to me now, my convoy, ambushed, watching as one by one the guards fell, a sharp pain in the back of my head, dropping to the roots of a towering oak tree, much like my old one in Lothlorien. There, the memories became fuzzy. A strange dream...

Tiffany - no, not Tiffany. Tiriel. I was Tiriel just as Lainey was Lalaith.

I pulled my hand away from the dirt, a sob racking my thin frame as I painfully bent stone-stiff joints. Tiny clover rolled off my palm as I brought it up, tugging on the root across my stomach. It stubbornly stayed where it was, the hard wood barely even giving under my pull.

I gave up trying to move it, and instead set to work removing the rest of the brush from my body. Dead leaves and tall ferns fell away, their roots barely clinging to the thin layer of dirt covering my limbs. The tree roots were the hardest to remove. Every time I peeled one away from my skin, it felt like picking off a scab. My other hand was stuck under a particularly tenatious root. I had just given up on getting it off when the root suddenly lifted a slithered away like a wooden snake.

I screamed.

 _'Hello, little one,'_ a voice said, echoing in my mind. _'You've awakened at last.'_

I bit back a gasp, opting instead for the question on the tip of my tongue, "Who are you?"

I could sense a vague feeling of amusement coming from the owner of the voice.

 _'I am The Tree. I have kept you save since you first fell at my roots.'_

"How-?"

 _'I am old,'_ The Tree explained. _'I was here when the elves used these paths often, when they sat to rest at my roots and taught me what it meant to be alive. You are the first, though, I have ever sustained, especially for so long a period._

 _'It has been twenty long years. You have slept, and slept. I have kept you alive, best I could, on food from the sun and the earth. I am afraid that...'_

The Tree trailed off, it's voice sounding reluctant.

"You're afraid of what?"

 _'I'm afraid there may be... side effects. I could not keep you alive without connecting to you. Physically and mentally. I doubt you'll ever be able to eat meat again. Winter... winter might be difficult. I am not evergreen, I do not always flourish. There might be other things, too, that no one could predict. Be wary, and be careful. You don't know what all can and cannot hurt you out there.'_

The root running across my stomach lifted up, uncovering an odd sight.

About ten thin, glowing roots stuck out of my body, hanging from the large root. They pulsed in rythm, almost like a heartbeat. Like my heartbeat.

After a second the roots deflated and pulled away from my skin, curling under the big root as it pulled away and slammed back into the ground.

 _'Go, follow the mountain pass to Imladris. There, you will be kept safe.'_

 ** _ooooo_**

I started my journey in what had seemed to be a forest. A few minutes later I realized that it was just a tiny grove of trees clinging to the side of a rocky mountains.

A small path stretched out in front of me; I followed it reluctantly. It was unfamiliar, and possibly dangerous. I slipped down it cautiously, my feet quiet as a whisper.

I stumbled to a halt, the thin shelf of slate plunging into a deep chasm where the stone had given away. The trail I walked looked dusty and uninhabited, and now I understood why.

The path wove between two clifts, leaving no escape route should there be an ambush. Besides that, it was riddled with pitfalls, as far as I could see. Luckily, none of them looked so wide as to prevent me from jumping them, but one misstep and I would be tumbling into oblivion.

I hopped over the chasm carefully, making sure not to slip on the shifty ground. I landed steadily on the other side, sucking in a sharp breath of relief. The frozen mountain air scraped down my lungs, rough like sandpaper. My empty stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't actually eaten in almost two decades.

I ignored it for the moment, having no food to fill it with, and continued down the treacherous trail.

Almost an hour later the trail opened up into a clearing, and I had to turn my eyes away from the sight.

Twenty years had washed away the heavy stench of blood and gore, but the smell of death lay like a blanket over the clearing. Skeletons lay strewn about the floor, or pinned to the rock walls with black-fletched arrows. A frosty wind rattled through empty breastplates and headless helmets.

I emptied my stomach at the sight, acids burning my mouth and nose in replace of the usual food remains.

I had just assumed that my escort had made it out of the mountains alive, but the battle-ground before me prooved differently.

I let the logical side of my brain take over - my go-to in times of panic and uncertainty.

Before me stretched a battle ground, containing the remains of both orcish and elven warriors.

If orcs had been the ones to attack my party before, there was a large chance that they still roamed these paths. That would be another reason for it's state of apparent abandonment -an infestation of orcs.

In that case, I would soon be in need of a weapon. A weapon that I currently did not have.

Elven warriors meant elven weapons and armor.

I cursed my logic, but still covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve and stepped into the clearing.

I tiptoed through the corpses, carefully examining each set of armor and weaponry for non-damaged peices. Finally, I was able to find a decent breastplate, backplate, and a pair of thick gloves, all plain leather and taken from a seemingly female skeleton. A beautifully carved bow and quiver were taken from an elf that had fallen to a comrade's stray dagger. I was able to scrounge up a large quantity of arrows, yanking them out of ribcages and the stone wall. They were all very britle, but I figured that they were the best I was going to get this far into the mountains.

I picked up a pair of curved knives in a shoulder-sheath, which I promptly slipped over my head, securing the belt tight across my torso. The knives I slipped into the tall boots under my heavy dress, one in each.

I continued down the path, feeling safer and more secure with the armor and weapons.

 ** _ooooo_**

I'd never known there could be a place as dreary as this.

The sky was gray, the rock was gray. Even the sparse plant-life was a bland gray-green.

I dropped, exhausted at the edge of another gaping hole. Already it was too dark to see the other side. Added to the fact that my head was spinning with hunger meant I wasn't going anywhere for a while.

I scooted back from the ledge to lean against one of the looming stone walls, wrapping my freezing hands in the fabric of my cloak before closing my eyes.

Sleep came easy that night.

* * *

 **Please review! I'd really like to know what you all think about the changes I made!**


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